(Photo credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images)

The Colorado Rapids are coming off a 2024 season that saw them make the playoffs, while St. Louis City wants to return there after struggling most of last year.

The teams open the MLS season against each other on Saturday night in St. Louis.

Colorado fashioned an exciting squad last season, one that bounced back from the worst season in club history to become a high-scoring winner. Most of the team's nucleus, including star Djordje Mihailovic, is back.

Coach Chris Armas wants to take the next step by improving the team's defense, a problem at times in 2024. He's training his team in a 3-4-3 formation instead of his favored 4-2-3-1, saying that the new look can help it match up better against certain opponents.

'We can be a little more unpredictable and have variability in what we do and in different parts of the pitch,' Armas said. 'We have different ways we achieve that. We're just thinking, 'How can we help these guys, give them solutions to all the challenges teams can provide us?''

Armas and the Rapids got a chance to work on their tweaks Tuesday night in a CONCACAF Champions Cup match, stopping Los Angeles FC 2-1 in 5-degree conditions at home as Mihailovic scored two second-half markers.

Meanwhile, St. Louis looks to replicate the form of its expansion season when it won 17 matches and finished atop the Western Conference. Coach Bradley Carnell didn't survive last year's decline, getting pink-slipped during the season, and Olof Mellberg was hired to helm the 2025 team.

Mellberg steps into high expectations, at least as far as team owner Carolyn Kindle is concerned.

'We will make the playoffs,' she said.

Much of that could depend on whether the team can maintain the offensive form it showed last year after Carnell was dismissed. It went 5-6-3 in its final 14 regular-season matches, scoring 23 goals. Three midseason signings -- Marcel Hartel, Cedric Teuchert and Simon Becher -- accounted for 12 goals.

Colorado owns a 2-1-1 record in the teams' two-year history.

--Field Level Media